Birds on a wire quilt

Have you checked out Le Challenge yet?  It is the brainchild of Lucy at Charm About You and Nat at Made in Home, and is a monthly challenge and link-up.  The challenge for May was "wings".

I had a lot of half-rectangle triangle scraps left over from making my Paper Petals quilt, and I used them to make up this little baby quilt top.  It was very simple - I sorted the triangles into warm/cold pairs, and then stitched them together before trimming the resulting rectangles to a uniform width (I think about 9").  I then laid the rectangles out in random order, stitched them into columns and sewed the columns together so that I had a quilt top about 27" by 30".

The picture about isn't great anyway, but I think you will be able to tell why I thought it needed something extra before I added the appliqué.  One of my favourite prints in the Noteworthy collection by Sweetwater for Moda features birds on a wire. Appliqué wasn't really part of the original plan, but when the idea of little appliqué birds on a wire popped into my head, I knew I had to do it (and, it happened to fit perfectly with the theme for Le Challenge!).

 

I couldn't get my sewing machine to co-operate when sewing on the birds (I was using polyester thread, and the tension needed to be different depending on how many layers I was sewing through), so I stitched the birds on by hand using blanket stitch.

 

Simple serpentine quilting and a crisp grey backing (DS Quilts from Spotlight) finish it off.

This quilt is about 27" square, and I donated it to the neonatal unit at Wellington Hospital.  I think it will be perfect for a little baby boy or girl.

Linking up with:

and finish it up friday at crazy mom quilts.

Paper Petals Quilt

I am so pleased to finally be able to share this quilt with you!

It is featured in Issue 13 of Fat Quarterly, out now!

I designed this quilt back in December 2012, and made it up over January and February this year.

I really enjoyed using the Noteworthy collection, by Sweetwater, for Moda, to make this quilt.  It was really hard not to share progress pictures and the finished quilt once I was done.

Apart from the back and the borders, this whole 90" square quilt was paper pieced.  No way could I have done this quilting - it was done by the talented Sue Burnett.



So, if you are interested in making your own version of this quilt, check out Issue 13 of Fat Quarterly - and do let me know, I'd love to see it made up in different fabrics!

Quilt Stats

Pattern: my Paper Petals pattern, available in Issue 13 of Fat Quarterly

Finished size: 90" square

Fabric: Noteworthy by Sweetwater for Moda, Moda Bella Snow

Backing: Text print and floral print from Noteworthy by Sweetwater for Moda, both in Cloudy

Binding: Assorted green prints from Noteworthy by Sweetwater for Moda

Pieced by: me

Quilted by: Sue Burnett on her long-arm machine.

Linking up with Finish it up Friday at crazy mom quilts.

WIP Wednesday

Just a quick WIP Wednesday update this week.  I just finished up this fun block for Sally - I think all the blocks together are going to make an amazing quilt!

After some solid sewing last weekend, my Oakshott and low volume plus quilt top is finished!  This is a photo of all the blocks laid out on my design wall before I assembled the quilt top.  I'm hoping to get proper photos tomorrow, weather permitting.

I also whipped up this little (approx 27" square) baby quilt top from scraps.  The picture is really not doing it justice - the colours are much softer in real life.  It's on my design wall at the moment, but I think it needs something... in fact, I think it needs appliqué!  Hmmm - good thing I seem to be in the mood to try new things at the moment.

What have you been working on this week?

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced:

An improv cushion for Gran

Do you know what you get from paper piecing?  Scraps.  Lots and lots of scraps.  Last weekend I decided to crack open my full to bursting box of Noteworthy scraps and have a play around.  Once I started pulling scraps out, I knew I wanted to make something for my grandmother Heather (Gran to me).

This is basically improv piecing - I just started with a piece of fabric and kept adding bits, trimming it down to a regular shape as necessary, until I had a decent sized block.  You might be able to see that there are a couple of more deliberately pieced areas (the pink at the top and the bottom of the pillow), where I wanted to include some pink but all my scraps were too small to be able to add a single piece. This 16" square pillow is made up of four improv pieced blocks, stitched together and then trimmed down to square.

 

I wanted the quilting to contrast with the crazy and wonky piecing, so I quilted a reasonably dense cross-hatch grid (I marked at 1" intervals down each side of the quilt top and used a hera marker to mark each diagonal line before quilting).  The 50 weight cream cotton thread I used just melts into the fabrics, so that the texture is the main feature.

Both the backing and the binding are from the same fabric collection - I was able to use a single fat quarter for the backing, with a simple envelope style pillow closure.  I think I might need to get more of this bird on a wire print - it makes a really great binding.

This pillow will be in the mail to Gran this week - she lives in Auckland, otherwise I would deliver it personally.  Hopefully she likes it!

Linking up with:

and finish it up friday with crazy mom quilts.